For 500 years, violin-makers have crafted their instruments by hand.
But for the past three years, three Minnesotans have been crafting them with the help of a CT scanner and computer-aided machine. And John Waddle, Steve Rossow and Steve Sirr believe they have nearly perfectly replicated some of the world’s greatest violins, with the sound to match.
The significance is not lost on modern violin-makers, who in essence have always worked as master copiers, modeling their instruments on the work of history’s top craftsmen, such as Antonio Stradivari, who died 275 years ago. But some of Stradivari’s methods, and even how the violin first emerged, remain a mystery.In his recently released book “The Violin: A Social History of the World’s Most Versatile Instrument,” David Schoenbaum writes: “Like the potato, (the violin) seems to have proliferated, first across Europe, then beyond it, as Europe itself proliferated. But while the potato was clearly a New World product, the violin, for all anyone could tell, just happened.”
At a workshop the past two summers at Oberlin College in Ohio, Waddle, Sirr and Rossow offered up their process for examination and, Rossow says, impressed some of the world’s elite makers. The gathering of 50 violin-makers made a copy of a 1704 “Betts” Stradivarius with violin parts the trio had carved with a computer numerical control (CNC) machine Rossow made specially for the task.
“Eventually, I think there’ll be more and more people using CNC machines to help carve out parts,” he said. “Back in Stradivari’s day they didn’t have power tools, and people today aren’t working under candlelight.”
Indeed, Chicago violin-maker Michael Darnton’s approach is a traditional one — working off of photographs, he gouges, chisels and sculpts, an intricate process that takes about 100 hours for each of his instruments — but he does use a band saw. Darnton models his violins on Stradivari, he said, because the instruments have a great sound and typically are easy to play.
“What makers traditionally do is build instruments for those people who need to sound good without a lot of work,” he said.
Whether the instruments are built by machines or by hand, the goal is the same: discovering the key to great sound. “The ball’s still up in the air for what (Waddle, Rossow and Sirr’s method) means for everyone who makes violins,” says Lisbeth Nelson Butler, secretary for the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, which will hold its next biennial meeting in Chicago in 2014. “It’s a game-changer. (But) I’m not exactly sure how it’s going to change the game.”
Sharper imaging
Waddle, a violin-maker, and Sirr, a radiologist and amateur violinist, had been imaging instruments with a CT scanner since the 1980s. It was just research — until Rossow got involved.
Rossow, a violin-maker and repairer, was dreaming big. He and a friend had built a CNC machine in 2007, with the hope that it would help Rossow make his instruments. A chat with Waddle and Sirr in Waddle’s shop led the three to merge Sirr’s imaging with Rossow’s machine.
“I brought it back to my shop and I started goofing around with the (image) file,” Rossow said. “I had to figure out the scale. And then I started disassembling the violin in a 3-D drafting program. … I needed to isolate each component of the violin.”
In 2009, the trio made its first replica, a 1679 Nicolo Amati — the original is valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nicolo Amati was the grandson of Andrea Amati, who some credit with making the first violins, although most historians, including Schoenbaum, agree there’s not enough evidence to support the claim.
After years of unsuccessful trials, the group was giddy about its first success.
“Boy, I tell you,” Waddle said, “to watch the tool go back and forth and (see) this incredibly beautiful arch emerge — it was an amazing feeling.”
A CT scanner can measure the original instrument’s wood density, a key component to sound and one major benefit to using this technological method. One of the most difficult steps in violin-making — arching — could also be perfected without ever having to pick up a chisel, Nelson Butler said.
Using more than 1,000 CT images, Rossow isolates the four main parts of the violin — the front, back, neck and scroll — and the CNC machine carves replicas. Those are then glued together. The sides of the instrument and the fingerboard on the instrument’s neck are still made by hand. Varnishing and dressing the instrument with a chin rest, strings and pegs are the some of the last steps in a process that’s considerably longer than the traditional one.
Since the Amati, the men have made four copies of the 1704 “Betts” Stradivarius with the help of other violin-makers. The original 1704 Strad is worth between $10 million and $20 million, Waddle said. Rossow, Waddle and Sirr sell the instruments made with their technology-aided process for $31,400 apiece. Three are currently for sale at this price, Waddle said. The other has sold, for an undisclosed price, and will be donated to the Library of Congress, where an original 1704 “Betts” Stradivarius resides.
Waddle said his group has an eye on eventually providing young musicians high-quality instruments for a relatively lower price. Mass production, however, is not a feasible option, Waddle said, because of resource and time constraints — their process takes about three times as long as the traditional process.
“We are not interested in mass-producing cheap violins,” he said. “We’re only interested in it if it results in a better violin.”
Chipping away
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Darnton makes his instruments the way they’ve been made for half a millennium.
Occasionally he makes use of a band saw or a jeweler’s saw — useful when carving the “F” holes on the top of the violin — but he also uses an antique Cremonese graduation punch.
In his store, on the 12th floor of a Loop high-rise, is a lobby with a receptionist who helps parents exchange and pick out rentals — relatively cheap instruments made in assembly-line fashion in places such as China and Romania. But down a hallway to the right is Darnton’s cluttered shop, where the violins he makes by hand sell for about $18,000 apiece. (The price of a violin can range from less than $1,000 to more than $1 million for those used by professional musicians.) An unfinished cello — just a project — hangs on the wall. Dozens of unraveled bows sit in a tall bin.
To begin his process, Darnton cuts spruce blocks and secures them at the corners of a wooden template modeled after the form of a 1715 Stradivarius. He bends the sides, or ribs, of the instrument with a hot bending iron. He glues them to the spruce blocks and lets them set, using clothespins or clamps to hold them in place. “It’s like a dressmaker’s pattern,” Darnton said.
Darnton then traces the set of ribs and cuts out the front and back of the instrument using the band saw. With a gouger, he digs with force into the front plate. On the back, he chips away wood with a plane to form a curve. He uses wood — the older and the drier, the better — from Europe, citing blemishes on American wood he calls “snot marks.” “Since I’m trying to (emulate) Stradivari, then I should use the same woods he used,” he said.
Embedded in the Stradivarius template he uses are interesting mathematical proportions. An uncanny number of measurements on violins he makes, Darnton said, are 32 millimeters or a multiple of 32. For instance, from the center of the violin to the outer edge of the “F” hole is 64 millimeters. The arches on the back of the instrument, Darnton says, are in the shape you would draw if you were to put a pencil in the hole of a button and roll the button along a straight edge — called a curtate cycloid.
Once the front and back are secured to the ribs, Darnton has a body. The scroll is carved, the ebony-and-maple neck is sculpted, set, aligned and glued. About 100 hours later, he’s almost finished. (A photo essay on his website, darntonviolins.com, details the making of one of his violas from beginning to end.) Lacking strings, a bridge and a chin rest, a violin weighs about 400 grams, less than a pound.
Darnton has repeated this process nearly 200 times, creating instruments for young students and for professionals such as Chicago violinist Jeremy Gershfeld.
“The playing response was very good,” Gershfeld said of his Darnton violin. “It’s very easy to play and predictable. It had a thick color of sound that I was looking for.”
“It just gave me a nice voice,” said Matthew Mantell, principal violist for the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, of his Darnton viola, which he played for two decades. “It helped me to project my emotions when I was playing.”
Even having been in the trade for 24 years, Darnton has new discoveries to make. Recently, Darnton said he had a breakthrough concerning how Stradivari drew the corners of his instruments. He’s also writing a book on violin-making.
Regardless of method, some modern-day violin-makers could be just as good as Stradivari was in his day, Nelson Butler said. Although there are clear advantages to technological advance, there’s something to be said for making things by hand, she said.
“I don’t think (a machine is) going to replace what humans are good at, which is being flexible,” Nelson Butler said. “I don’t think (Rossow, Sirr and Waddle’s method is) really a cliff, but maybe an evolution.”